Massey University, Wellington Campus - Mount Cook

Great place. Completed my bachelor of communication design with honours here & did pretty well. Unfortunately uni education is becoming increasingly outdated, too many fees go to useless services and lecturers are so ancient you never learn anything relevant to the industry. 99% of the relevant skills, tools & methods I use for working in this field were learned after graduating on my own. Massey, along with other universities are flooding industries with new talent but not taking any responsibility for helping graduates find work which creates many problems for graduates and the economy. It's like here's your degree, out the door you go.

I have studied distance with Massey University for about 9 years. I have slowly chipped away at a qualification by doing several papers each semester since then. I felt compelled to write this review as a warning to others and inform your decision prior to embarking on the costly exercise of gaining a tertiary qualification. A very basic calculation of papers only for a BA comes out at about $14,000 NZD – this does not include textbooks or any other fees that are attached to enrolling or being a distance student. In hindsight, knowing I had spent that much, I would have chosen something cheaper and that I was interested in. I will let you know early, the only reason I finished my qual, was because I was too far in to quit and the fact that most 20-something mid-level HR functionaries have a tertiary qual, and thus the expectation is created for you, that to work in any mid-level white collar role, you must have one also. PLATFORM: The ‘Stream’ platform is old and outdated. Every tutor gets to arrange their content differently. This means that every paper is different in how information is presented on screen. The platform does not scale well to mobile devices, and many papers must load entirely (rather than by section) prior to letting you have access. This does not lend itself well to casually logging in to catch up on content (say if you use a mobile on the bus). I can only imagine how frustrating the platform is if you are not computer literate. It is not user-friendly. PAPERS: I have seen the evolution of course content over 9 years. Even though I sound insane saying it, the University has slowly been over-run by Social Justice types, especially the School of Humanities. It makes for a very boring and 1 dimensional learning environment. The same themes come up repeatedly, and are not taught as theories, but as fact. I would not dare question any of the contentious topics on the discussion forums, for fear of complaint or falling out of favour with the course tutor (and thus impact on grades). The qualification itself is nothing special, it does not build the individual to anything more than being ordinary/bog-standard/run-of-the-mill. The worst part is knowing you can easily sail through assignments by regurgitating what is being served up in front of you. You might think “that sounds easy”, and it is for the first and second time, however it becomes soul crushing after the third, fourth, fifth and sixth time etc. The business and security papers do not seem to be as bad – although I have only completed a few of each. It continues to astound me how they manage to shoe-horn social justice into areas you would not otherwise expect it. ENVIRONMENT: The faculty staff seem to rally every time someone remotely controversial tries to speak on campus. I mean, they cancelled Don Brash, arguably the most boring man on the planet. Likewise, with Ani O’Brien. I believe at one point Pride NZ even threatened to take away their Rainbow tick, its interesting to watch the university get clubbed over the head with things you’ve essentially had to pay for, all because something or someone falls slightly outside of the norm whilst being taught about valuing diversity. THE GOOD: The library is great; you can loan books and have them delivered directly to your door and mailing them back is also free. The access to Software and databases is good, Microsoft Office and OneDrive is all free as a student. In summary, shop around. I am sure there are far better options around the world for the price you pay. Have a really good think about the things that matter to you, and what you find interesting, and let that guide the choice you make in choosing higher education. Do not buy into the hype or lie that University makes a better person. I am living proof.

Best School of Design ever :)

Massey Wellington has so much potential yet too many shortcomings to be worthy of your money. Its core online infrastructure is completely flawed and embarrassingly designed for an institution that takes pride in creating new designers. Admittedly I have honed my practice throughout my core practice but Masseys continuous failures in aspects like terrible online services, stingy department grants and non existent wifi really brings the whole experience down.

Was good too catch up with some old friends and learn afew things for the day...

3 years and almost 40 grand later.... they lost my degree in the mail.

Well I work here so have to say its a fantastic place for learning. Well I so mean ot as well. Massey is an incredable school and fo us is on students there welfare and education is at the highest levels. Absolutly 100%. The film amd music school is world class with production suites and live recording and control rooms that are whay you would see in any proffesion music studio or film industry. Cant rate high enough.

I went to Massey university to do a job. The campus is currently under the traffic light system, scan-ins everywhere and vaccine pass required. This was during the weekend but its showing signs of life.